Social networking - is it destroying communication?

Is social networking destroying peoples ability to communicate properly? Very possibly. In a world where communication and clear communication is key, many people see to be dumbing themselves down through the use of social networking sites.

It's been happening with mobile phone text messaging for quite a few years and now it's creeping into the likes of Face Book and most noticeably Twitter. Where users have only limited characters to get their message across, languages are being destroyed and replaced with short-hand sms speak, mad abbreviations - that I honestly don't understand half the time.

Yes, languages naturally evolve and change over time, but to what extent is this going to change today's languages and the way we interact with one another. We already see examples of youngsters filling out exam papers using text abbreviations, adults who can't fill in job applications or other forms correctly - where will it end? Plus people don't 'talk' anymore. It's too easy to send a BBM, text or whatsapp message, or even have a full blown conversation between several people on social networking sites. Has all our interaction gone virtual?

I have thoughts of the world ending up like that of the movie Idiocracy, where instead of Darwinism ruling and the stupid cleansing the gene pool by taking themselves out of it (hence the Darwin awards every year), we're all going to end up as mindless morons who are incapable of any form of intellectual interaction.

Just food for thought :-)

Communication is key!

Wow - what a mad couple of weeks! There's been dramas, fall outs, unnecessary bickering, you know all the normal things that happen within a group of friends, but one thing I think we've all learned is that communication is key. There's no point making snippy Face Book status updates and firing messages back and forth, as these can very easily be misinterpreted. Instead it's much easier to pick up the phone and have a conversation, or go for coffee and chat face to face as you definitely achieve more that way and wrongs can be righted within a short amount of time, instead mud slinging through cyberspace.

It's got me wondering though, are social networking sites and technology advances responsible for more friend fall outs, for the very reasons I've stated above? Do we talk to one another less and thus communicate in a less appropriate manner? Look at the mobile phone! 20 years ago, the majority of people didn't have one, if you made an appointment to meet friends, you actually had to turn up, you couldn't send a lame text message to get out of something (yes I'm guilty of doing it too), with some ridiculous excuse. Well the same can be said for the internet, when the majority of people's social calenders are planned through FB events and whether they are 'Attending, Maybe, Not Attending'.

Have we become more insular as people? Do we communicate less, because you can change your mind at the 'click of a button'? And could dramas have been avoided if only we'd taken a few minutes to actually talk to one another? Probably, and that's why as a close nit group of friends, we have decided that 'Communication is Key' and that if someone has an issue, then we have to talk not type about it. To quote an old BT ad slogan 'It's good to talk!'

Although it has been a time of unnecessary dramas and issues, I think as friends we have grown closer to one another and reinforced what is an what is not acceptable, we can now say what we feel (within reason) without fear of someone else flying off the handle, because as friends you should be able to tell each other how you're feeling and warn someone if certain behaviour is a little unacceptable - so for now, it's all good :-)

Sadly every now and then you do come across the odd person where talking or any sort of sane communication on any level seems virtually impossible. But that's a whole other topic and one that I shall address/discuss very soon.